With the development of digital technology, portable digital equipments such as a mobile communication terminal, a portable game console, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a personal multimedia player (PMP), and a digital camcorder are being launched as a product combining a camera function.
A camera unit installed in such a portable small-sized digital equipment includes a shutter device to control the amount of light to obtain a necessary exposure like a general camera. In particular, if the camera is embedded in a mobile communication terminal, for example, in a mobile phone, it is essential to employ a mechanical shutter to photograph with high quality. It is also important to simplify the structure of the shutter device since a slim mobile phone requires a small-sized and slim camera module. Also, the camera unit is required to operate the shutter device at high speed to obtain photos of good quality.
In a conventional camera shutter device used for a portable small-sized digital equipment, however, a driving source to apply a predetermined driving force to the shutter, for example, an actuator has a relatively big size to guarantee high operating speed of the shutter. Therefore, there is a problem that the whole size of a lens unit, as well as the size of the shutter device, increases. This problem eventually results in increase in the whole size of the portable small-sized digital equipment and deteriorates portability of the digital device.